Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the village from picturesque into postcard-beautiful. I am lying in bed listening to a Mozart version of “Ave Maria,” with a heavenly soprano almost bringing tears to my eyes with the loveliness of it. This is the civilization of ...
I had a short chat with BBC Radio concerning the actor Jack Nicholson, whom I knew slightly during the 70s and 80s. Alas, it had to do with age, his and mine, 77 and 78 respectively. No, the man on the other side of the telephone did not ask me anything embarrassing. All he wanted to know was: Do ...
This is a good time to write about a nation’s resilience in the face of calamity. I am referring to the stoic discipline with which the Japanese bore hardship and the death of 15,000 people in March 2011 following a 9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever known to have hit Japan. I can ...
Although an acknowledged sinner for most of my adult life " I chase women non-stop, drink to excess, smoke and gamble " I have never left the easy foothills of faith, a Catholic faith imbued in me by my father, raised a Jesuit. Now, you"re not going to find many Greek ship owners ...
Welcome to 2015, the year that speaking and writing freely had to stop. Anything that might cause trauma to anyone of any race except the white one will be expunged, and the perpetrators of politically incorrect speech or written words will be airbrushed forever. "Trauma" derives from the ...
Political correctness. The dreariest, most depressing and dismal words in the English language, almost as depraved as the word "hype." The apostles of P.C. claim to teach tolerance and diversity, but heaven help anyone with thoughts sufficiently independent and diverse to disagree with ...
If I were a North Korean leader, or even an ISIS head chopper, I"d be reveling in the fact that a black American former basketball star spoke more plainly about race in America than any member of our political class or media. Charles Barkley doesn"t mince his words. Many of his fellow ...
Here is my Christmas gift to Takimag readers, one that applies mostly to unmarried males, but it’s also available to married ones who might wish to test whether that old magic still works. (Female readers of the best magazine in the whole wide world may also pick up a few hints.) This is not to ...
When I was young I lived an idyllic life. I played sports, chased girls, and read novels. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John O"Hara, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, George Orwell, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, you get the picture. No James ...
Except for sickness in one’s family or the loss of a life, is there anything sadder than to see a bookstore shut its doors? I used to live in a street that had three bookstores within 50 yards. All three are now boutiques selling expensive bric-a-brac, or whatever the junk that tarts wear is ...
